Darrel378's Apprentice Guide
Welcome to the Apprentice Guide! * This is my first guide, on the mysterious Apprentice! Who is he? Who is his master? And why has he never complained about the Squire's lack of pants? The answers? Who cares! Let us begin! Summary of the Apprentice * Pros #Points in towers will go much farther in-game then for other classes. #Staves allow him to attack from range. #Staves allow knockback around the Apprentice. #An awesome hat! #Fairly fast at max speed. * Cons #Incredibly low health-per-point. #Low hero attack growth. #Towers do not have as much health as most would like. #There is a bad mindset that the Apprentice is useless in Nightmare. Towers *Magic Missile Tower DU, 40 Mana '''[Abbreviated MM'] The most basic of all the towers! With a low cost in mana and in DU, this tower can fill in roles such as Spider defnese and early defense. It is the fastest tower (until you get 1500+ in Tower Speed) and it is also non-elemental, which is very good since only one other tower in the App's arsenal is as well DST. Howerever, it has the lowest damage-per-shot of the towers, so its uses are limited. *Magic Blockade 'DU, 20 Mana [Abbreviated '''MB] One of four towers in the game specifically designed for just blocking. While this one has the lowest health and is the smallest, it also costs the least in DU and Mana. It also has a not-so-unique function: removing elemental affiliations from attackers. In the past this was a purely Apprentice ability, but now the Huntress and Monk have traps/auras that do it as well. It is still great for soloing and useful for filling in smaller spaces between defenses. *Fireball Tower DU, 80 Mana '''[Abbreviated FB'] Probably the most-used tower in the entire game by Apprentices the MB, this is an elemental tower. Obviously it is for fire, but that element means unless something is striping away affinities, this tower will be useless in things like Nightmare difficulty. However, ignoring that, it is a very powerful tower, with an Area-of-Effect explosion. It is a slow -firing tower, but a few points in Tower Speed will fix that. All in all, it a great tower, and one of the App's selling points. *Lightning Tower' [ 7 DU, 120 Mana] [Abbreviated LT'] The other most used tower of the App, this is of course, lightning elemental. Again, it will need something to get rid of affinities to get the most out of it. However, unlike other towers, this tower's damage is done a little differently. Its radius is 360 around the tower, and it will fire every second or so. When it does, it creates a chain of lightning that will damage enemies every second it is going off, and usually stun them on top of it. If there are enemies outside of its radius, it might alslo link its attack to them. That makes this tower great on maps with enemy paths in tight circles. A very useful tower. *Deadly Striker Tower '[ 8 DU, 150 Mana] [Abbreviated '''DST] As the final and most costly tower in the game, you would think the DST is amazing, but it really isn't. While it has a huge amount of damage each shot, huge range and can go through walls, it just doesn't fire off fast enogh. And since it only targets one enemy, multiple DSTs can end up attacking the same enemy. Useful on the lower difficulties, and not for much else. Unique Abilities *Overcharge Mana per second- 3 second cool down ''' One of the App's selling points. It greatly''' reduces the casting rate for Mana Bomb, upgrading, healing, and summoning. This abiltiy lasts as long as you have the mana. Points in this stat increases the length of time the ability only costs 8 mana and *maybe* speed. After, it seems to double in cost each time. *Mana Bomb 'Mana per use- 60 second cool down ' Not one of the App's selling pints. On paper, it looks amazing, as it deals a nice burst of damage, a huge amount of knockback, and it's like you dropped a nuke on the map. Unfortunately, unless you are putting tons of points into Mana Bomb, you'll find one shot from a staff dealing more damage then this attack in endgame, even on a Tower App. Putting points into this will increase damage and knockback. *Charging A unique property to all of the App's attacks; when the player holds down the primary or secondary attack button, the App wil start to charge his staff. When it is raised over his head and glowing, it has reached full charge. This results in around quadruple the attack power, and now it is higher with the latest patch 7.33 which boosted App charge damage by 20%. This can lead to primary attacks being charge for a second and then fired for normal mobs, and bosses/ogres getting full charge blasts for huge damge. The scondary will gain increased damage, knockback, and range from charging. (Almost) every staff has a stat which affects the speed of charging. Don't bother charging if it is -4 or below. Stats Hero *Health As your mage character, of course the App is squishy! It has the lowest point-to-health of the characters, and is generally not worth putting points into. *Attack Unfortunately, the attack growth for the App is low. It is probably only a tiny bit lower than the monk growth in reality, but still. Luckily, the developers gave the App a couple of unique abilities. *Speed Since all he wears are robes, the App is quite fast with some points in speed. However, it is usually not worth it to put points into this, since the effective cap is 99 like 200 if on Nightmare/Assault. *Casting Rate I don't actually know if there is a diffference between all the classes heal/summon/level-up bases, but putting points into this is not really considered, even on the App. Towers *Health Thankfully, the App will gain much more health-per-point for his towers than with his own health. Strangely,the Fireball tower will gain a huge amount of health compared to most other towers. *Damage/Effect This is the most importanat stat for the Apprentice, and is probably what you should raise first. Increasing tower damage is always a plus, so why wouldn't you want more? * Area of Effect Increases the range of all towers, and boy is it huge! Most mythical-wearing Apprentices have enough in this stat to have a DST hit from one side of the map to the other. Hugely important for Lightning Towers. *Tower Attack Rate And now the stat every App has a love-hate relationship with. Speed is very good for getting a nice DPS on towers, but it eventually soft caps at 0.10 for MM and FB towers. Useful, but don't put too many points into it; your equipment should fill in most holes. Allocation Tower Apprentice #Tower Damage #Tower Health #Tower Range/Speed #Overcharge #Hero Health #Hero Speed/Damage #Mana Bomb #Hero Casting Rate Pros *Can hold back huge amounts of mobs. *Easier to get "No Damage to Hero" bonus. *Can tear through bosses in range. Cons *Low Hero survivability rate. *Can't really take down a boss by themselves. *Mages can overpower towers. Hero App #Hero Damage #Hero Health #Hero Speed/Casting Rate #Mana Bomb #Tower Health #Overcharge #Other Tower Stats Pros *Can actually take a hit. *Can actually kill ogres/djinn/bosses easily. *Ranged attack and knockback can support builders/monks. Cons *Towers aren't effective, so only one or two lanes can be held at a time. *Still too low of a health max to be jumping into a mob of enemies. *Mana bomb still has a minute recharge, so it isn't spammable like other special attacks. Equipment *Weapons : Unfortunatly, the App doesn't have weapons with unique effects or actual dfferences like the Huntress or Squire. The biggest might be the odd weapon with an element attached to the normal attack stat, but that isn't really a factor for most of the game. When upgrading a weapon, upgrade what will help your build the most Hero Build, boost attack; Tower Build, boost tower health/attack/etc. If you are going for Hero DPS, check to make sure that charging and projectile speed isn't too slow. By the way, even if the game tells you a weapon/armor is better than what you currently have, check to make sure before equiping. Otherwise, you might just get worse stuff instead. Also, be careful when using large staves, because if you get to close to an enemy and start firing, the projectiles will appear behind the enemy. *Armor : As with all characters, make sure to get a matching set for the 25% boost to stats Mythical; 33% Transcedent; 36% Supreme. If you are using gear that is meant for endgame, or Insane difficulty, make sure to boost resists to 50% or higher. Then you can start to just boost stats, again based on your build. Do note, that while the adjective Torn, Amazing, Godly determines (or rather, is determined) by the stats on the gear, the noun Mail, Chain, Pristine doesn't seem to affect ( or be affected) by the stats. They just get you set bonuses. *Pets : Generally, what pet you are using doesn't really matter, as long as you are upgrading it correctly. If you are using a Guardian, make sure to boost the amount of towers it boosts at a time when you get the chance. For DPS pets, always boost damage, and if you can, the amount of projectiles it shoots at a time. As for the TF2 pets, just do whatever you want with them, as they aren't going to get that much use by the endgame. Unless you want them to. Also remember that experience points get transfered into mana for a pet's upgrades, so take that into account before spending millions for 300 extra damage. *Accessories : The most recently added piece of equipment. The boosts it provides are so insignificant in stats that you really shouldn't worry about it. Instead, just chooose whatever goes best with your sense of style. General Strategies : Solo Apprentice *When you are soloing as an App, and only using it there are some things you should not do. One is jump into a group of enemies. This is what we call suicide. Instead, stand behind you defenses and fire at enemies instead. *Some general tower setups include: **Place a wall of MBs to stop mobs. **Place LT in places were enemies must walk around them but can't attack it. **Place a MB and put a FB a couple of feet behind it. **Place MM to protect crystals from wyrens and help support any weaker defenses. **If you need, you can just place a LT and a fireball tower next to each other and ignore MBs. **DSTs should be placed much farther away from you main defenses to make sure they have the time to kill things. **For bosses: always make sure there are a couple of FBs placed to kill the boss when it appears so that you get a steady stream of damage. : Multiple Classes *Darrel378 10:38, May 3, 2012 (UTC)Soon to come Nightmare Difficulty: Why it Truly is One Nightmare difficulty is the added difficulty if you have purchased the complete Legend of the Lost Eternia Crystal pack as an added bonus. If you do not own it, you can still join the games of people who do. Do not attempt unless you are A)Level 74+ with high end mythical/trascedent/Supreme gear OR B) Getting carried by someone else. Version 0.47 *Actually added this section. *Still to come: #Summaries on the different builds for an App. #Strategies #Nightmare Info. #Whatever commenters tell me that should be in this guide. Conclusion Just a week after the guide was started, and I'm slowly getting through it. Again, I don't know how long it wiil take me to finish it, but I will. Category:Apprentice Guides Category:Guides